RWBY Through Worlds

139: Far From Home

"From Alicia's stories, they did many terrible things," Ozpin said. "She told me that there are worse gods than the ones we have--in that they demand worse things. Some I could not repeat to you, young as you are, but one that is burned into my memory is that they would sacrifice their own children to them." 

Oscar shuddered. "Who would do that?"

"Apparently a lot of people... Fanatical devotion is a strange thing," Ozpin said. "I've heard of cults doing the same thing for the gods... Perhaps religion dying out here wasn't all bad... One might even ask if even the god of darkness would approve such things."

"Oz, didn't you and Salem...with your children?" Oscar said nervously.

Silence...a pained silence.

Oscar sighed. "Maybe we aren't so different then," he mused. "But that's evil...I mean...all the things they did, worse stuff than that, too, probably. I don't know if we can blame God for judging them. Shouldn't He?"

"But does He have to so harshly? When is it enough?" Ozpin might have meant the gods of Remnant more here, really--because in Oscar's mind, punishing people was less harsh than annihilating the whole planet. He'd take that option, personally.

"I don't know, Oz," he said thoughtfully. "I wish no one was ever punished, but if they weren't...if all the horrible things we've seen are just...the end of it...what was the point? I don't know if I want to think that those people who destroyed Atlas and Beacon are just going to get off easy. I mean...or Salem--shouldn't she suffer for what she did?"

"Suffering has never changed her mind," Ozpin said.

"Maybe not, but just letting her go?" Oscar asked. "I don't know. That doesn't seem fair either."

"But all this endless death," Ozpin said, "what does it do for us? And I thought the idea of balance was poppycock, according to Miss Likstar."

"Yeah, but I've never heard her say that the idea of justice ⚖ is," Oscar said. "And isn't that justice? Not balance of life and death, but death to the people who deserve it and life to the people who are innocent? Isn't that a big difference? Isn't it wrong the gods gave life to Salem, who should've died, and let you die, even if you were the better person, and then they gave your life back but in this way... Funny, now that it's just the two of us, I can say that."

He frowned. "Why isn't it bothering me?"

Ozpin went silent.

"Oz...is it just you?" Oscar suddenly began to understand. "The curse...it's not in me, is it? It's in you. What I've been feeling...are they your feelings, not mine?"

"They are both of ours as long as we are tied together," Ozpin said.

"But they aren't coming from me." Oscar felt hugely relieved. "Are they?"

"I would say not. You've never had any problem with losing the curse," Ozpin admitted. "But I..." He shivered inside.

Oscar felt it--but now that he was looking for it, he detected a sort of difference in the feeling... It wasn't natural to him.

He leaned back. "So...we're still struggling. It's not that we're becoming one."

"I would more say, according to my own memories, that we are merging from sheer force," Ozpin said. "Our minds are not as compatible as they used to be perhaps, but I'm still inside you. The curse will try to drive us together...and if it's not with your cooperation, then it may be more painful."

"Are you saying that you've merged with your previous hosts just by swallowing up their willpower?" Oscar blinked. "That it's not just that your thoughts are joined, but that your wills become the same?"